ItBurn wrote on Aug 13, 2012, 14:19:But it's just true(to me). In FO3, I did exactly what I wanted all the time. In New Vegas, I constantly had to compromise and there were some really shitty mechanics. Like, I wanted to kill a scientist at the bottom of a dungeon. This would allow me to finish the quest the way I wanted to. If I did that tho, I would lose reputation with a faction, even tho NOONE else was there and I was undetected, making this course of action impossible. There were a ton of other examples like that. You must finish the mission in one of two very rigid ways, none of which were what I wanted to do.

Quest example from FO3: Guy asks you to find x amount of keys to open a secret vault with lots of loot. He doesn't want to tell you where it is. Let's forget the lengthy part where you get the keys. You get all the keys, then you can figure out yourself where it is if you have the skills, if not, you can give him the keys, and follow him there, or give him the keys, then learn of where it is and go there to share the loot, or find out another way where the place is, or even kill the guy, or finally, the way I did it, give him the keys, learn where the vault is, then pickpocket the keys back and leave. None of this would break the quest and the guy would always react accordingly.

The FO3 quest you mention is one of very few like that. New Vegas has soooooooo many more quests with multiple paths and results that I am literally baffled you think otherwise. Judging from your first paragraph I am wondering if perhaps you just disliked the consequences to your decisions that New Vegas doled out. Consequences to your choices, like upsetting a faction, is what RPGs are all about IMO.

Skyrim actually introduces a minor bit of that with the civil war and some random quests, plus Danwguard has it with the vamps versus the hunters. It's nowhere near New Vegas quality but it was nice to see from Bethesda.

This. Gaining a negative reputation with a faction is a natural repercussion to doing something that faction doesn't like. Granted, it's stupid that you can lose reputation without there being any witnesses but I'm pretty sure that's a balancing mechanic. Given how open-ended FNV is, you could probably kill every member of a faction without losing any reputation were it not for the omniscient reputation system. It's like the karma system in both FO3 and FNV, where you can lose karma for hacking and stealing, even if nobody sees you do it.

In terms of branching quest design, FO3 was definitely a step up from Bethesda's other games. However, it was still pretty weak compared to FNV. If FO3 were more like FNV, you'd be able to align yourself with the Brotherhood of Steel, the Brotherhood Outcasts, the Super Mutants, the Slavers or the Enclave.

And don't get me started on writing. Oh man, where to begin. Okay, let's look at the various locales you visit in FO3.

Megaton: Why would any human build a town around an unexploded nuclear bomb that's leaking radiation? It makes no sense whatsoever unless you're a ghoul that thrives on radiation.

Tenpenny Tower: Big, fancy hotel standing tall out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by raiders, super mutants, mutants, killer robots, etc. Number of guards: 5? Maybe 4? None of them are heavily armed or armored either. How exactly did Tenpenny Tower not get invaded/destroyed?

Little Lamplight: So a class of kids get stuck in a cave when the bombs drop. Somehow, generations of those kids survive for hundreds of years within that cave. How? Cave fungus? Really? I seriously doubt 20+ children could survive for a month off of cave fungus, letalone generations of kids. Even if you ignore that, how exactly are these kids fending off raiders, super mutants, deathclaws, etc? Like the guards at Tenpenny Tower, these kids are neither heavily armed nor heavily armored.

Cannibal town: A family survives by eating people. None of the family has any armor or firearms. How exactly did they survive, letalone kill people?

Big Town: Bunch of incompetent, poorly armed and armored people living near an area full of super mutants. This town has apparently been around for years despite this.

So... yeah. FO3's locales weren't written with any sort of logical coherence or any real sense of history. It's like Bethesda's writers tried to come up with unique ideas and failed to actually flesh them out. Compare this to FNV, where every location has a real sense of history and relevance to the lore. Also, the locales actually make sense.

And then we have the dialogue. Worst skill checks ever. Seriously, I facepalmed myself on many occasions, it was so bad. The vast majority of skill checks were completely superficial and had no meaningful impact on the course of the conversation. Secondly, the skill checks were really, really poorly written. For example, you might get a Science, Charisma and Intelligence way of describing how a bunch of raiders took over a supermarket, except the each line is only slightly different from the other and in no way representative of the skill check itself.